


Keith's Birthday Multiship Drabble Collection

by Stumbling-While-Balancing (Rellanka)



Series: Keith's Birthday Fic Celebration [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Especially Hunk, Established Relationship, Fainting, Finding Your Place In The Universe, Fluff, Insecurity, Keith Being Carried is a Kink of Mine, Keith doesn't believe the Paladins other than Shiro care about him, M/M, Mischief, Reference to a homophobic commander, Supernatural Bonds, Yandere!Lotor, they do
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-06 14:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16389545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rellanka/pseuds/Stumbling-While-Balancing
Summary: A grouping of seven drabbles to be posted in the course of the week to celebrate the birth of this special boy. Multiship edition.1. Heith, The Journey Within (a prompt from the Keith Birthday Week)2. Koliveith, The Joy of Belonging3. Kinkade/Keith, You Didn’t Need to Go To Such Extremes (To Get My Attention)4. Katt, Sometimes, You Just Have To Punish The Assholes5. Keitor, You're Everything He Wants





	1. Heith, You Don't Know We Care

**Author's Note:**

> Entry for the Keith Birthday Week 'The Journey Within' prompt.

Hunk frowned as he stared at his friend, sticking to the background and just taking the chance to study him while he went about his day. While Hunk had never brought it up due to there being a lot of things taking temporary precedence (like, oh, freakin’ **Sendak** popping out of nowhere and choosing to enslave **_Earth_** ) there had been something bothering him since they had been trapped in space.

“What is it, Hunk?” Keith said finally, sending a visible shock through Hunk as he jumped at the surprise of being acknowledged (guess he hadn’t been as sneaky at his observation as he’d thought.) “You’ve been staring at me all day.”

Keith’s voice was gentler than most people expected it to be, and Hunk wondered again why so many people wrote Keith off as only an aggressive hothead. He was a lot kinder than anybody gave him credit for, and caring, and selfless, and beautiful…

He cut his thoughts off abruptly there. Best not to think of that.

“I just… Look, Keith, I’ve got to ask you something and you’ve gotta promise me you’ll be honest and not avoid the question, okay?”

He continued at Keith’s confused nod, “Do you really… do you really not think that we’re friends? Do you really think that we don’t care about you?”

Because if there was anything that Hunk knew, it was that Keith had said those things because he thought he wasn’t cared for, not because he didn’t care, himself. He’d proven he cared, in big ways and small more times than Hunk could count.

Keith turned his gaze away and looked like he wished he were anywhere but standing there in front of Hunk, “I don’t blame you guys, if you don’t. That wasn’t the point of that. I know… I know I’m difficult to care for.”

Hunk’s heart **broke**. Into tiny pieces that he didn’t know it would recover from.

“Keith,” He said softly, emotionally, hoping that half of his regard for the man in front on him showed in his voice, “You’re one of the best people I know. You do your best to take care of the rest of us, even if you’re not sure what to do. You still **_try_**. You would never give up on any of us, would do anything to save us, and you never expect us to do the same because you put us before yourself. You’re not difficult to care for. It’s so easy to love you. And we do. We all do.”

He couldn’t resist bringing Keith into a hug at his poleaxed expression, so obviously shocked that anyone would ever say that and mean it, “I guess… I guess we’ve just got to be better at showing that.”

And Hunk would be damned if he didn’t make sure that they did.


	2. Koliveith, The Joy of Belonging

There was something about Earth that made Keith feel uncomfortable. Something that made him feel like he never quite fit, never quite belonged. Not even Shiro was able to make Keith feel like he truly had a place, even though he came closer than anyone ever had, excepting Keith’s father. A part of him had always expected something to take Shiro away, even if he would (and had) fight against those things if Shiro hadn’t left willingly. 

 

He wondered if maybe his feeling of not belonging had come from some hidden knowledge that he was meant to be among the stars, or if he was just inserting that knowledge there now. Just forcing his past to fit his present to make sense of it all. It probably was that, him imagining things, but there was a part of Keith that liked to think that maybe he had always known that he would find home there. Maybe, even, that he would find the love and acceptance and joy from a source that he had never expected, but couldn’t bear to lose now. 

 

He sighed, almost subconsciously as he felt Kolivan rumble deeply against his back, before Kolivan nuzzled against the bite-shaped scar on Keith’s neck, sending pleasure radiating down the rest of his body. The scar that matched Kolivan’s teeth. The one that marked Keith as Kolivan’s _mate_. 

 

“What troubles you, beloved?” Kolivan asked softly, so softly Keith wasn’t sure he would have heard it had it not been spoken so closely to his ear. 

 

“Not troubled.” Keith said, the skin on his side shivering deliciously as Kolivan trailed his big, strong hands over it soothingly, “Just glad,” he continued, turning over to face Kolivan and saying only one last thing before drawing him into a kiss, “That I finally found the place that I belong.”


	3. You Didn’t Need to Go To Such Extremes (To Get My Attention)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t even know I shipped this until it sprung almost fully formed from my fingertips. Now I need more.

When Kogane, leader of Voltron, widely known as the Earth’s strongest defense besides Atlas (which was captained by Kogane’s best friend) walks up to him and _collapses into his arms_ Ryan is at a loss as to what to do. This has literally never happened to him. Ever. People tend to avoid getting near him because they find him too stoic and quiet, and he’s been described as frightening by more than one person. They don’t just… come up to him and essentially _throw_ themselves into his space.

It wasn’t until his team had formed that Ryan had even started experiencing what it was like to have real friends. Assholes though they were, Ryan cared deeply for them… not that he’d admit it to anyone but maybe Leifsdottir; the other two didn’t need the ego boost. 

But he never expected that gaining friends would make him start experiencing things like _this._ **Was** this his teams fault? Had they provoked it somehow? In his years of experience being friends with them, Ryan had grown to find that a lot of things were- at least when it came to situations that he found himself having to deal with. He wouldn’t put something like this past them. 

Looking down at the form in his arms, Ryan frowned. Kogane _appeared_ unconscious, but if Ryan’s team had somehow talked him into this… how much could he really trust that? He was just standing there, Kogane breathing steadily in his arms, when one of Kogane’s own team members walked up. The short one. (Not that Ryan would ever call her that to her face. He didn’t have that kind of death wish.)

“So he finally gave in, did he?” She asked dryly, not seeming bothered over what was essentially a stranger to her holding onto her teammate. Ryan hoped it was a sign of trust for him as an MFE pilot, because otherwise the lack of concern was a little odd. Kogane’s team had always seemed protective over him, before. 

The Short One seemed to take Ryan’s continued silence as a questioning one, and she offered, “Hunk gave him with a mild sedative; partially because we needed to test it out on people with Galra blood, and partially because Keith’s been working himself way too hard for someone who just got out of the hospital. Just take him to his room and let him sleep it off; we’ve already got a schedule set up so that people will be checking in on him. I’ll let the team know it’s time to start.”

And with that she simply walked away, leaving him standing there with Kogane still in his arms. Okay.

Ryan breathed out a deep sigh, before starting off to where he knew Kogane’s room was. (Not that he would ever tell why he knew that. A man deserved some secrets.)

It really wasn’t that bad, he admitted to himself silently. Kogane was pretty cute, lying there in his arms. 

And maybe, later, Ryan would be able to use this as motivation to finally ask Kogane for a date.


	4. Katt, Sometimes, You Just Have To Punish The Assholes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to publish this yesterday. Great. Well, better late than never!

It was strange, how many people assumed that Matt was a good boy. It was probably the fact that Matt was a geek, and also that he generally was known to follow the rules. But he only ‘followed the rules’ because Matt was smart enough to know how to loophole through and around the rules until they fit what he was willing to do. And usually what he was willing to do included a bit of rebellion. 

Like now, for instance. When he was trying to convince a very unimpressed Keith that defacing Brown’s office (the Admiral the government had sent to replace Sanada, who was somehow even worse than her) was very necessary for the Garrison’s soldier’s moral. 

“I don’t think your usual excuses will work this time, Matt.” Keith pointed out dryly, “There’s no way that hacking his computer so it only plays gay pornography and filling his office with images of the same type of thing is anything but against the rules. No matter how much of a homophobic asshole he is. Or how much he deserves it.” 

Matt smiled back at his boyfriend, because he had the perfect response to that. It wouldn’t be what Brown had said to Matt about his and Keith’s relationship, because he knew his boyfriend, and so knew how upset and self-conscious that would make Keith (for bringing trouble into Matt’s life, because of course he’d blame himself for what the asshole said) along with the protective rage that would bring forth in him. But he had an unrelated fact that was just as good. “Yesterday he told Shiro to stop checking out the male soldiers that were training because it was disgusting and it almost made him cry.” He said in a preemptively triumphant rush. (Well, Shiro (who hadn’t been looking at anyone with anything other than professional interest at the time) hadn’t really looked like he was going to cry, but he had looked visibly uncomfortable, so... Same difference, really.)

Keith looked like a mother cat that had just watched someone murder her newly born kittens right in front of her. 

Grabbing one of the bags full of printed images of male love from Matt, he marched ahead of him toward Brown’s office. 

“Let’s do this.” He said over his soldier, and laughing Matt ran to catch up.


	5. Keitor, You're Everything He Wants

There was something about the Red/Black Paladin’s loyalty that was arresting. Once you had it, you apparently had it for life, and nothing was capable of taking it away. Even when the Paladin was forced to watch as the person he was loyal to turn against him, he still believed, he still was so sure that something must have gone wrong to make his leader act that way. He had never hesitated or faltered in his trust. Had risked his life for his belief without hesitation, in fact. 

Haggar had told Lotor all of this and more when trying to get his assistance with the beasts she was constructing to finally bring Voltron down. She’d even told him that the Paladin was half Galra, though that had only been after more inquiry on Lotor’s part. To Lotor, it was like being told that the person he’d dreamed of having by his side all his life actually existed, but would never extend the caring and loyalty he so desired to Lotor himself. 

It caused Lotor to alter his priorities, a bit. Bringing down Voltron was still a priority, of course it was. But Lotor now had another one that was just as important. The Red/Black Paladin was everything he’d ever wanted, a companion with the type of loyalty that he’d dreamed of ever since he was a child. Lotor would make that loyalty his.

No matter what he had to do to make it so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is almost an prologue to a short Keitor fic that I might be posting tomorrow (if I get it finished?) or maybe the next day so keep an eye out for that if you like this one!


End file.
